2 Kings 18:19

18:19 The chief adviser said to them, “Tell Hezekiah: ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: “What is your source of confidence?¹

2 Kings 18:26-27

18:26 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, Shebna, and Joah said to the chief adviser, “Speak to your servants in Aramaic,² for we understand it. Don’t speak with us in the Judahite dialect³ in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” 18:27 But the chief adviser said to them, “My master did not send me to speak these words only to your master and to you.⁴ His message is also for the men who sit on the wall, for they will eat their own excrement and drink their own urine along with you.”⁵

2 Kings 18:37

18:37 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace supervisor, accompanied by Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph, the secretary, went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn⁶ and reported to him what the chief adviser had said.

2 Kings 19:4

19:4 Perhaps the Lord your God will hear all these things the chief adviser has spoken on behalf of his master, the king of Assyria, who sent him to taunt the living God.⁷ When the Lord your God hears, perhaps he will punish him for the things he has said.⁸ So pray for this remnant that remains.’”⁹

¹tn Heb “What is this object of trust in which you are trusting?”

²sn Aramaic was the diplomatic language of the empire.

³tn Or “Hebrew.”

³tn Heb “To your master and to you did my master send me to speak these words?” The rhetorical question expects a negative answer.

⁴tn Heb “[Is it] not [also] to the men…?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Yes, it is.”

⁴sn As a sign of grief and mourning.

⁵tn Heb “all the words of the chief adviser whom his master, the king of Assyria, sent to taunt the living God.”

⁶tn Heb “and rebuke the words which the Lord your God hears.”

⁷tn Heb “and lift up a prayer on behalf of the remnant that is found.”